An aerosol is a suspension of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. There is a need to analyze the particles of an aerosol especially where the particles of aerosol are unidentified or contain pollutants that must be monitored or limited. There are numerous approaches to provide instruments and methods for the collection and analysis of particles of an aerosol. However, each of these approaches has had certain drawbacks with respect to development of hand-portable instruments and sensors to allow real-time chemical analysis of aerosols with excellent limit of detection. As such, there is a need for improved real-time or semi-continuous methods and apparatus for the collection and analysis of particles of an aerosol. Most current technologies used for real-time chemical analysis of aerosols are not amenable to compact, hand-held instrumentation.